Sunday, March 21, 2010

SFFaudio Online Audio

Entitled Opinions is a radio program (and podcast) from Stanford university’s radio station KZSU. In discussion from a program in May 2009 are the editors of
The Re-Enchantment of the World: Secular Magic in a Rational Age: Joshua Landy (a professor of French at Stanford) and Michael Saler (professor of history at the UC Davis). Together they are responding to Max Weber’s famous statement:

“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization, and, above all, by the ‘disenchantment of the world.’ —Max Weber

This concept, disenchantment (entzauberung), was introduced by Weber to describe the character of his modernized, and increasingly secularized society, where scientific understanding had become more highly valued than religious belief. In their discussion Saler and Landy ask questions like:

‘Do all philosophical inquiries begin in wonder?’

‘Why does Science Fiction take off as a genre?’

‘Can we replace God and the Devil with Sherlock Holmes’ rationality and Moriarty’s criminality?’

‘Is the hierarchy of Middle Earth something we’d like to see in our world?’

It’s a fascinating discussion! |MP3|

Posted by Jesse Willis

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox I like it when SFFaudio gets cited on Wikipedia. One of the citations there is a point I made about The Green Odyssey |READ OUR REVIEW| and the Dungeons & Dragons module Dragonlance: DL6 Dragons of Ice. I compared The Green Odyssey‘s roller-ships (a kind of wind powered land ship) with the iceboats of Dragons Of Ice And it was just yesterday I came across another similar variant on the sail-powered-terrestrial-ship:

“Mr. Fogg examined a curious vehicle, a kind of frame on two long beams, a little raised in front like the runners of a sledge, and upon which there was room for five or six persons. A high mast was fixed on the frame, held firmly by metallic lashings, to which was attached a large brigantine sail. This mast held an iron stay upon which to hoist a jib-sail. Behind, a sort of rudder served to guide the vehicle. It was, in short, a sledge rigged like a sloop. During the winter, when the trains are blocked up by the snow, these sledges make extremely rapid journeys across the frozen plains from one station to another. Provided with more sails than a cutter, and with the wind behind them, they slip over the surface of the prairies with a speed equal if not superior to that of the express trains.”

-From Around The World In Eighty Days (chapter XXXI) by Jules Verne

Here’s an image of it from a Golden Picture Classic edition of Around The World In Eighty Days:

An iceboat from Around The World In Eighty Days by Jules Verne

Around The World in Eighty Days
By Jules Verne; Read by Mark F. Smith
37 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours 33 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: April 16, 2008
Mysterious Phileas Fogg is a cool customer. A man of the most repetitious and punctual habit – with no apparent sense of adventure whatsoever – he gambles his considerable fortune that he can complete a journey around the world in just 80 days… immediately after a newspaper calculates the feat as just barely possible. With his excitable French manservant in tow, Fogg undertakes the exercise immediately, with no preparations, trusting that his traveling funds will make up for delays along the way. But unbeknownst to him, British police are desperately seeking to arrest him for the theft of a huge sum by someone who resembles him, and they will track him around the world, if necessary, to apprehend him. This is an adventure novel of the first water, with wholly unexpected perils, hair-breadth escapes, brilliant solutions to insoluble problems, and even a love story. And can this be? – That he returns to London just five minutes too late to win his wager and retain his fortune?